Restaurant review: Maggiano's Little Italy

I’m tending to the latter these days. The company has upgraded its menu, with a variety of new items that include baked ziti and sausage and beef braciole, a rolled roast that’s stuffed with ground beef, cheese, vegetables and bread crumbs and then cooked slowly on a red wine sauce. The former was so well received at the press lunch I attended that I barely got any of it, and the latter is just terrific -– beefy and earthy. In fact, they’re not just well-executed; they taste the way they’re supposed to taste.

Maggiano’s trademark is its family-style service, in which the food comes on platters and everyone shares (just like at home). Is this gimmicky? It all depends on your point of view. If you wanted more ziti and sausage, yes. But it does work, which always surprises me, especially since family-style is more expensive than single portion. It’s possible to spend less than $50 a person for dinner (including wine), but you have to work at it.

Interestingly, when I was there a couple of weeks ago at lunch, the restaurant was packed. This was despite some construction and the economy, which has hit the restaurant business pretty hard. Apparently, a lot of other people like family style.

Comments

Maggiano's works because it has really good food. I never was a meatball fan until I ate spaghetti and meatballs and Maggiano's, and now I am pretty much stuck on it, ordering the same thing nearly every time I go in. They occasionally have one of the best desserts in town, Panna Cotta, which I so fell in love with that I had to learn to make it myself since they only have it occasionally and it's not on the menu. I'm usually alone when I eat there, so the "family" menu holds no allure for me, but even the "half portions" for lunch are more than I can eat at a sitting and I usually end up taking some home. Take out is very generous, even for one entree. It will feed me about three times, and they put in whole loaves of bread.

I do dispair that so many restaurants have begun to offer everything ala carte, because I don't think it would hurt anyone to throw in a salad with an entree, and that can certainly run the bill up at Maggiano's, but once in awhile I just have to have the (enormous and tender) meatballs and spaghetti.

I generally avoid any place that caters to "family" as Maggiano's would seem to do by emphasizing their family menu, even though individual portions are also available; but despite its "family" marketing efforts, it seems to me that Maggiano's NorthPark has maintained a very pleasant and refreshingly adult clientele.